


Never get used to you

by Elisexyz



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: (more or less), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Baelfire | Neal Cassidy Lives, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff, Hangover, Wedding Planning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-08-25 12:27:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16661165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elisexyz/pseuds/Elisexyz
Summary: It's the morning of their wedding day, and Neal needs to pick up Emma after she had fun at her bachelorette party. To be more specific, he needs to pick her upfrom jail.(Yes, her father is the one who put her there.)(And no, Neal is not going to let her live this down. Ever.)





	Never get used to you

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Tumblr prompt: [ 24\. “Somebody’s cranky.” “Somebody needs to shut up.” + Swanfire](http://heytheredeann.tumblr.com/post/180763663054/raises-hand-may-i-get-24-from-the-sarcastic).  
>  Canon? What's canon? I can't hear you over the sound of Swanfire preparing for their marriage. The context is pretty vague, but in my head I simply took _Quiet Minds_ and went 'NOOOOPE'. Let's just say, for the sake of simplicity, that True Love's Kiss saved Neal.

“Come on, rise and shine, baby,” he grins, shaking her shoulder just enough to be noticed.

Emma cracks one eye open, takes one look at him and then groans her disapproval at being woken up, rolling away from him and ending up uncomfortably pressed against the wall, which isn’t very surprising, considering the lack of room on the jail’s cot. He’s pretty sure that there was a curse – or two – hidden in her answer, probably an insult at his general existence as well.

“Somebody’s cranky,” he comments, amused, giving her another shake just to remind her that she can’t go back to sleep.

“Somebody needs to shut up,” she retorts, before sighing very loudly in a theatrical show of her hatred towards life and pushing herself up on her elbows.

She’s still wearing her clothes from the night before, leather jacket included, her hair is a gigantic mess and she’s squinting at him like she’s trying to make out who he is, but he frankly thinks that she looks beautiful. Or adorable. Probably a good combination of the two.

She also smells like a liquor store, but hey, you can’t have everything.

He hands her a bottle of water, which she accepts after swinging her legs down the bed and wincing visibly when she’s not covered by him anymore and she comes face to face with the morning light.

“I take it last night went well?” he grins, without bothering to mask that he finds it more than a little amusing.

Emma glares at him. “How comes _you_ aren’t a mess?”

He shrugs. “At _my_ party, we had Killian to drink half of the alcohol available. And you can’t enjoy how dumb he gets if you are completely shitfaced. _And_ I am a responsible adult.”

She snorts _very_ loudly at that, then her head turns in his direction so fast that he’s afraid she might have snapped something in her neck. “You are my _groom_ ,” she says, her eyes wide like she just had some sudden, life-changing epiphany.

“Yeah,” he snorts. Isn’t she supposed to just be hangover right now? “That I am, I’m glad you noticed.”

She gives him a brief unamused look before defaulting back to slight panic. “We aren’t supposed to _see_ each other. My mom’s gonna lose her shit.”

“I think it’d be much worse if she found out that you sneaked out of your own bachelorette party to fuck shit up with Regina,” he points out. If they are lucky, his future mother-in-law will never have to know.

Or, at least, not before the wedding.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Emma shrugs, as he hands her a couple of pills for the headache. In that moment, he’s pretty sure that he can see her eyes turning into two giant, adoring hearts. It’s nice to know that her love for him is rooted in the important things. “Where is she, by the way?” she adds, leaning forward to try and take a look at the cell next to hers, which is empty.

“Robin picked her up, like—” He glances at his watch. “—ten minutes ago. She looked a lot like you, if it makes you feel any better.”

“It does,” she assures. “How did I end up here anyway? I mean, the sheriff is my—” She stops talking, her eyes widening comically. “Tell me my father wasn’t the one who found us completely wasted and put us in jail because we were a threat to public safety,” she begs, in the tone of someone that already knows and dreads the answer.

He can’t help grinning a little: she’s being _so_ dramatic about it. “I can lie if you want,” he offers, shrugging.

Emma buries her face in her hands, probably dying of embarrassment. “Fantastic,” she growls. “That’s just fantastic.”

Neal supposes that right now she doesn’t really need to know the details, like that she drove Regina’s car and crashed it against a street light, then apparently proceeded to call David herself to complain that there was a street light getting in the way of her freedom.

Nobody was hurt, aside from the poor bruised light, but David sensibly decided not to let the two of them drive around any longer.

“He agreed to keep it quiet, at least for now,” he explains. “But you’d better come with me and get a shower before it’s time to get dressed. You can go to my place, I have to go to my dad’s anyways.”

“Still undecided about the suit?” Emma grins, standing up and doing a good job at looking like a functional human being. Which she isn’t, at the moment. Still, that doesn’t seem to stop her from enjoying her chance at taunting him in return.

He sighs, resigned. “Last I heard, he was down to six. Belle texted me that he changed his mind and we are back to eight. And a half, if you count a tie that he isn’t sure _where_ to put that he insists he likes.” He rolls his eyes. “He keeps this up, I’ll show up in my underwear.”

He doesn’t particularly care about the suit, honestly, but his dad has been making a very big deal out of it – he and Snow discovered an unlikely kinship during the preparations for the wedding, since apparently they are both very fixated on details that their respective son and daughter don’t care about or hadn’t even _considered_ before they brought them up –, so much that Neal basically gave him free reign.

The idea was that a few days before the wedding his dad would have narrowed down the choices and they could choose the winner together. Turns out, they still have to make the choice on the day of the damn wedding.

At least Emma already got her dress picked out – and he’s honestly pretty curious about that: Emma has never been big on dresses, she rarely wears them, and Snow was probably fixated on something very fairy-tale like, he’s kind of looking forward to finding out what the two of them agreed on.

“I’d like to see my mom’s face if you actually did that,” Emma comments, as they head out of the station. “She’d have a stroke for real.”

“I think she would take her blessing back,” he comments. “Here,” he adds, giving her the keys to the Bug. “I’ll walk.” It’s better if they are not seen in the same car, and he’s early anyway.

They are getting married, _today_.

There have been so many preparations, and so much _talking_ about it, that his stomach has stopped flipping whenever it’s mentioned, but now that they are saying goodbye as fiancé and fiancée for the last time, because the next time they’ll see each other they’ll be getting _married_ , it suddenly feels a lot more real.

It’s been more than a decade since they met, and most of that time they’ve spent apart, for one reason of the other. Now they are getting _married_. How is that even possible? _When_ did he get so lucky?

“I’ll see you later, then,” she smiles, leaning forward for a quick peck on the lips.

He automatically leans towards her, brushing his hand against her shoulder. “See you later,” he smiles back.

She’s going to be his _wife_. He’s beginning to get the feeling that Snow is not going to be only one crying at the ceremony.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of the [LLF Comment Project](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/llfcommentproject), which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates feedback, including: 
> 
>   * Short comments
>   * Long comments
>   * Questions
>   * “<3” as extra kudos
>   * Reader-reader interaction
> 

> 
> If you don’t want a reply, for any reason, feel free to sign your comment with “whisper” and I will appreciate it but not respond!


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